Category: headlines

My Very Excellent Mother used to be
the soul of generosity, and her beneficence
a universally-acknowledged truth.
Around the world, students rejoiced
when they recalled that sheJust Sent Us Nine Pizzas.

But as time passes, so it seems, the universe
contracts; mom’s liberality is capped
and scientists decree that students
will make do withNothing.

The DCTN strap-line is “(mostly) first-person poetry, prose and opinion” and I try and keep the blog more poetical than political. Of course, with the UK election looming, this is going to be more and more difficult; I suspect there’s more politics in poetry than there is poetry in politics.

So, recognising that politics are bound to enter into things sometime soon, I’ll get started with a few fairly random recent thoughts. First, a somewhat startling headline snipped from the BBC website:Continue reading “non-poetical”

However bad the weather is when you’re reading this, I doubt any UK readers will be witnessing anything quite as extreme as that shown in the video of this news story:
What struck me, of course, was the “read more” headline at the end of the story. Why has the year 2014 been so hot?

It doesn’t matter how good your writing is if no one reads it, so one of the skills of journalism must be composing attention-catching headlines. Whoever realised they were in a position to use the phrase Most dangerous alien species in a story title today must have been sure they were on to a winner.

Perhaps it’s just me, but the headline below (on the BBC website the other day) conjured some bizarre images.
As I wondered what a “UK world leader” would be like and whose dna the scientists would mix and match, there was one name that kept recurring.

Fortunately, the somewhat depressing image of the UK taking over the world with Churchill at the helm was brightened by a mental soundtrack of Tim Curry singing “I can make you a man.”

(For those who want to know the real story of the UK’s genetic research project, it’s here. As for me, I think I’ll go and re-watch the Rocky Horror Picture Show.)

For a bored subeditor, making up punny headlines can be fun, but I think there’s a point when serious news should be treated seriously. (True, my post title is slightly frivolous, but this is a personal blog not an official news provider.)Continue reading “news at the cutting edge”

Firstly, I gather from this tweet from the Independent that I must have missed something about new government policies on euthanasia:I wonder how much warning they intend to give before carting us off to be processed into Soylent Green.Continue reading “news and views”